A common feature shared by virtually all motor vehicles used for private and commercial transportation is the provision of a suitable interior space within the vehicle for seating and accommodating passengers. Thus, in a typical automobile, the vehicle interior generally supports a front seat and rear seat able to accommodate four to six people. In certain vehicles, a relatively larger interior space is provided. Such vehicles include sport and utility vehicles, station wagons, recreational vehicles and vehicles generally described as vans or minivans. The common feature of such vehicles is the provision of a substantially larger interior space for passengers and other objects within which the front and rear seats are positioned. In addition, some vehicles such as extended length vans provide a third seat and so on. Cargo space is often provided at the rear of such vehicles. For passenger and driver comfort, environmental systems within the vehicle such as heating and air conditioning are provided to circulate appropriately heated or cooled air throughout the interior of the vehicle.
As a practical matter, such vehicles while able to accommodate a substantial number of passengers together with a driver are often driven for extended periods of time by a driver alone or a driver with a passenger in the front seat leaving the remainder of the vehicle empty and unoccupied. This creates a basic inefficiency of such vehicles with respect to heating and air conditioning in that the entire volume must be heated or cooled despite the relatively small portion of the interior volume which is occupied by the front seat driver and passenger. The same principle applies where additional passengers are seated in the rear seat with respect to the additional space behind the rear seat which is unoccupied but which nonetheless must be heated or cooled to maintain proper temperature within the vehicle interior.
Thus, a basic difficulty or problem arises in such popular sport utility and recreational vehicles having large interiors with respect to excessive air conditioning and heating loads imposed upon the environmental system. In addition, recent model vehicles employ less efficient coolants such as R134 in place of Freon which has been banned for use because of environmental concerns. This places further demands on air conditioning systems, particularly in large volume vehicles. To meet these problems, practitioners in the art have endeavored to provide various apparatus for dividing or compartmentalizing the interior of the vehicle. The most common apparatus includes a roll-up curtain or shade which is positioned within the vehicle interior and usually secured to the vehicle roof in some fashion. The idea is to roll-down the curtain or shade to provide a vertically extending air barrier or air circulation impediment which separates or compartmentalizes the vehicle interior between an occupied portion (such as the front seats) and an unoccupied portion (such as the rear seats). For convenience, the curtain is preferably removable or rolls up or down to provide storage when not in use.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,818,007 issued to Mahoney sets forth a VEHICLE SCREEN/SHADE for providing an air flow barrier within the interior of a motor vehicle. The screen includes a transparent portion and an opaque portion and is mounted within the interior of the vehicle such that the transparent portion provides no substantial impediment to a viewer's visibility. A member for mounting the screen within the vehicle is provided which is capable of retracting the screen. The screen is movable from a first retracted position to a second elongated position in which the opaque portion extends behind the driver's seat and the transparent portion is positioned in line with the driver's visibility field. Additionally, the shade/screen is movable to a forward position extending from the dashboard of the car rearwardly spanning the front seat area to provide an opaque sunscreen barrier when the vehicle is not in use.
While prior art air barriers such as that described above in U.S. Pat. No. 4,818,007 have provided some capability for compartmentalizing or separating vehicle interiors into used and unused spaces, they are subject to substantial limitation. One such limitation arises from the straight vertical edges of the curtain which accommodate the roll-up feature for storage. Unfortunately, the majority of vehicles within which such air barriers or screens are usable have interior side walls which are curved outwardly rather than straight vertical walls. As a result, a substantial gap exists on each side of the curtain between the side edge and the curved interior wall of the vehicle. This gap is often quite large due to the substantial curvature of the vehicle interior wall giving rise to a basic inefficiency of the curtain. With the basic objective being the provision of an air flow or air circulation barrier substantially compromised by the existence of such large side gaps, the effective isolation or compartmentalization of the vehicle interior is correspondingly reduced in effect. Air flows freely on each side of the curtain through the gaps reducing the curtain's effectiveness. In addition, the manner in which such prior art devices are supported and operated is often cumbersome and often results in a rather unsightly structure for the vehicle interior.
There remains, therefore, a need in the art for an improved air circulation barrier for vehicle interiors which is not subject to the above-described problems and limitations. More specifically, there remains a need in the art for an air circulation barrier for vehicle interior which is attractive in appearance and which provides a more effective air barrier when used in a vehicle interior having outwardly curving vehicle walls.